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How often do you print anything (for personal reasons)?

bigred

Penultimate Amazing
bigred
Joined
Jan 19, 2005
Messages
21,666
Location
USA
I haven't had a printer in years because I almost never have a need or even interest in printing anything. I've printed something like twice in the past 5 years. Just wondering if that's typical
 
Hard to know without other responses, but I'm frequently printing forms to sign.

In the past 2 months I've printed:

Driving licence renewal form
Eyesight test form for above
Superannuation declaration x 2
Statutory declaration re: will

Plus a load of things for the kids.
 
Turns out I'm printing something every few days, mostly black & white. I like having separate color cartridges now but it's still where they get ya.

Recipes, Instructables, art reference, legal forms. I had several years in a row where I'd be printing out tax forms at the last minute and run out of ink. (My state requires copies of the Federal form as well.) Usually when it's 7:45 pm and Staples closes at 8. I'm glad I do it online now and print the forms at my leisure if I want to.
 
I print sheet music sometimes (about once a month or so). Also, every once in a while I'll need to print something to sign. But I haven't owned a printer in 20 years. When I was working, I could usually print stuff at an office somewhere. Nowadays, I just go to the library and do it for free.
 
About once a month, usually forms to sign, or tickets that I feel safer having in hardcopy.

It’s handy how I can print from my phone and iPad to my printer, and also to the same model printer at my mother’s house.

Printers are great when they work.
 
Just today I had an opportunity to send a fax. My printer has a fax option which I have never used. Tried it, didn't work. I thought it would go through my wi-fi somehow, but obviously needed a connection to a phone line. I have a modem jack on my internet box that I have a landline phone plugged into but haven't used in several years. I unplugged that and found that I didn't have a separate line long enough to reach from my printer/fax to the modem. I had to move the printer and modem at great difficulty moving things around. Finally I was able to get close enough and I jacked the printer into that.

Still no success. I plugged the phone back in and it turns out the little on/off sensor on it was broken so I couldn't check the line. So I took the phone apart and wriggled some stuff around in there, to no effect. I had a bunch of old phones in the basement I got at a surplus sale (freebies) so I looked at those. Turns out none of them had a base to plug into the phone jack, just the handsets themselves.

So I went to the thrift store thinking I could find one since nobody uses them any more. Oh, lots of junk there, but not a single phone. I did see a phone line in the wires section.

I came back home and ran several resets on my internet system and modem to no effect. I tried calling the home line from my cell phone but got disconnected immediately every time. It should at least ring even if there isn't a phone plugged in on the other end. I looked at the internet help for my service and all the auto-resets didn't work. I finally got an agent on the chat and after some diddling they reset the line. They said oh, you have an old modem that's why you're having intermittent problems, and will send a new one out.

After the reset I picked up the original old phone and heard a dial tone. I said **** this I'm not going to fax that document I'll have to do it a tedious way. As if it hadn't been tedious enough already.

So, while my printer has been great, **** those people who insist on faxes.

Oh, and then the print head clogged on my 3D printer, and that was another fiasco that finally ended up in me buying a new print head. If there was ever an evening I sorely wanted a drink, it's this one.
 
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I have a printer, but I'm 100% certain that the cartridges are long dried out and useless. My dad still prints stuff - I helped him with some family tree stuff just this afternoon, and he printed out two pages and stuck them on a pinboard above his desk.
 
it usually comes in spurts for us. We'll go months without needing to print, and then we'll need to print out a bunch doctor's forms for school or camp for the kids or print up financial documents because we want to do something like refinance our mortgage.
 
Let me see, last week or so I've printed:

Half a dozen coloring pages for my daughter
A few pages of sheet music for tuba and trumpet
A few recipes for my wife
D&D character sheets

So probably 25-30 pages this week?

If you print anything at all, ever, that isn't glossy photographs, get a laser rather than an inkjet printer. If you print a lot, the toner cartridges are way more cost-effective than ink cartridges on a per-copy basis. If you print only once in a blue moon, toner cartridges don't dry out and need to be replaced every few months like underused inkjet cartridges. If you print a moderate amount, lasers are so much faster than inkjets that it's just less frustrating. Never going back to inkjets.
 
alfaniner said:
Turns out I'm printing something every few days, mostly black & white. I like having separate color cartridges now but it's still where they get ya.

Recipes, Instructables, art reference, ....
Click to expand...

Similar to me and add in my own artwork.

Probably 3 or 4 times a week.
 
Oh, and for D&D I always recommend going electronic. I use Hero Lab, but Beyond, Roll20 and other platforms are fine as long as you're okay with paying for the books twice.

The advantage of using a non-paper character sheet is that a computer never forgets to add your proficiency bonus.
 
It's extremely rare for me.

The last time, was when I was moving my superannuation accounts into retirement mode.
(Equivalent to USA 401k accounts I think.)

The providers needed physical copies to be seen and notarised by a Justice of the Peace.

(They could be scanned and emailed after being 'sighted' but had to be in a physical state in the middle.)

Fortunately, my laser printer uses loose toner, and doesn't care if it has long periods of idleness.

If I need portable versions of documents, I can put them on one of my tablets, my laptop, or on my phone (which is a phablet apparently).

Very occasionally I'll back something up to a CD or DVDROM, but mostly just rely on copies on my computer and NAS.
 
A lot, but its almost entirely for tabletop gaming stuff.

I get really annoyed whenever a place emails me a form that they want me to print, fill out and bring in, and they often seem puzzled when I send back a filled in PDF doc. This doesn't seem like hard new tech to me, c'mon people.
 
Maybe five or six times a year. Stuff like a local property tax receipt when I know I'll need it for something at the DMV, or forms I have to fill out and mail like when I redeemed a paper EE savings bond from 1993 last year. Some financial things you can't do completely online everywhere, they want paper documents with signatures. I don't print enough to justify keeping the printer plugged in, or even on my desk, I just haul it out when I need it.
 
Very rarely anymore, maybe two or three times a year. Although I did just have an instance the other day. I maintain my grocery list using Evernote on my computer which then automatically transfer to my phone. I was just walking out to pick up my brother to go shopping when I realized Evernote would not open on my phone. I didn't want to keep my brother waiting while I figured out the problem with Evernote so I printed the list. First time I've used a printed grocery list in years.

I still have two color laser printers left over from when I had a home office and worked in the office as well. I've been using the same cartridges for five years on one printer and when they run out I'll probably just toss that printer and drag out the other and use that until it dies.
 
I print instruction sheets for kits, order packing lists and invoices etc.
 
I only print a few sheets a month. Mainly piano scores, guitar tabs and documentation for parcels. The MFP gets far, far more use as a scanner.
 
In my last job I was selling wine at food festivals and needed to print off price lists (sixty odd pages) at least monthly, since it was a commission only job I invested in a laser printer with duplex to keep costs down. Unfortunately I did so very shortly before leaving the job. These days I print my own monthly schedules and 'Reflection Logs' for my wife's driving students to fill in. Other than that things like manuals (I'm currently starting Fallout, the first one, and jumping in and out of it on a modern machine is a bit of a pain so using the pdf is less than ideal).

That said I do a lot of printing but most of it is 3D not 2.
 
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A couple of times a month; mostly sewing patterns that I've bought as pdfs. There's a place in the village that will print them for me but they charge such a lot.
 
We print practically any ticket, form, or document because my wife insists that it is more safe. Personally, I don’t need a printer most of time, and I sign documents digitally.

However, I do think my wife has a point, because it has happened that documents have been unavailable because they were mysteriously deleted, or there was no network access for some reason. But the filing system of my wife has been infallible.
 
steenkh said:
We print practically any ticket, form, or document because my wife insists that it is more safe. Personally, I don’t need a printer most of time, and I sign documents digitally.

However, I do think my wife has a point, because it has happened that documents have been unavailable because they were mysteriously deleted, or there was no network access for some reason. But the filing system of my wife has been infallible.
Click to expand...

The first time, I used a pdf of a boarding pass on my phone, you should have seen the looks I received from the other passengers.

I'd imagine it's pretty much standard these days.
 
Agatha said:
A couple of times a month; mostly sewing patterns that I've bought as pdfs. There's a place in the village that will print them for me but they charge such a lot.
Click to expand...

I’ve seen ads for patterns online and often wondered how that works. What size paper do you need?
 
I use a printer daily- but thats for 'work purposes', and its only a 50mm wide thermal receipt printer lol
(it 'can' actually do limited picture etc in 'black and white' but pretty meh quality...)

I actually have two inkjets here- they both in theory should still work, but neither has ink, and I haven't used either in this decade yet...
 
I've had an HP Laserjet 4P since 1993 (when HP were still good!) and according to the firmware test page, I've only printed 750 pages in all that time! Why, it's practically still new!
 
novaphile said:
The first time, I used a pdf of a boarding pass on my phone, you should have seen the looks I received from the other passengers.

I'd imagine it's pretty much standard these days.
Click to expand...

I feel safer having printed copies for backup, just in case my phone stops working or something.
 
I print quite a lot because my side gig is writing and I do a much better job of proofreading with a printout.
 
Almost never now. We have a nice Brother wifi laser printer. My daughter is at uni now and no longer prints off homework sheets or pictures for art projects. My wife, who has her own business as an IT project manager, long ago moved the last process online. The last thing I printed was tickets for a show (Ed Byrne - Tragedy plus time - see it if you can) and noticed the warning about yellow ink has been on for years.
 
bigred said:
I haven't had a printer in years because I almost never have a need or even interest in printing anything. I've printed something like twice in the past 5 years. Just wondering if that's typical
Click to expand...
Probably sometime in the last year.
 
I'm keeping a spreadsheet of my freezer inventory which I update and print every couple weeks. (I write on it in the in-between.) After so many years of playing roulette with whatever I have in my 3 freezers (one in the fridge and two cube-style in the basement -- one for meat and the other for bread and veggies), I finally decided to keep track of what goes in and comes out. Many times I have forgotten I have something and it's a pleasant surprise to find it on the list.
 
alfaniner said:
I'm keeping a spreadsheet of my freezer inventory which I update and print every couple weeks. (I write on it in the in-between.) After so many years of playing roulette with whatever I have in my 3 freezers (one in the fridge and two cube-style in the basement -- one for meat and the other for bread and veggies), I finally decided to keep track of what goes in and comes out. Many times I have forgotten I have something and it's a pleasant surprise to find it on the list.
Click to expand...

...what? What do you mean, roulette? Like...you go down to the basement, seize an unlabelled package, and say "THIS shall be dinner!" and then you open it to find out it's just blueberries or a pack of egg roll wrappers? It's novel, I grant you, but I'm wondering if such a game is actually much fun.
 
TragicMonkey said:
...what? What do you mean, roulette? Like...you go down to the basement, seize an unlabelled package, and say "THIS shall be dinner!" and then you open it to find out it's just blueberries or a pack of egg roll wrappers? It's novel, I grant you, but I'm wondering if such a game is actually much fun.
Click to expand...

You might be surprised at what a decent cook (moi) can come up with when faced with a challenge.
 
alfaniner said:
You might be surprised at what a decent cook (moi) can come up with when faced with a challenge.
Click to expand...

Heh. My fridge is busted so right now it only contains lukewarm soda, ketchup, and two bags of sugar. (I keep sugar in the fridge to discourage ants.)
 
arthwollipot said:
Oh, and for D&D I always recommend going electronic. I use Hero Lab, but Beyond, Roll20 and other platforms are fine as long as you're okay with paying for the books twice.

The advantage of using a non-paper character sheet is that a computer never forgets to add your proficiency bonus.
Click to expand...

I am in a game using Roll20, and we keep our sheets updated in the system, but I still like a paper copy during game sessions.
 
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